Events

Bardic Poetry Workshop

9.00-9.45: Down at the coalface: taking the text from the manuscripts.

Dr Eoghan Ó Raghallaigh. The focus in this session will be on palaeography, using such tools as the Simms Database and Irish Script on Screen.

9-45-10.30: Shaping the material: using metrics to establish a reliable text.

Dr Mícheál Hoyne. The focus in this session will be on metrics using traditional sources like the grammatical tracts, Ó hEódhasa’s Rudimenta.

10.30-11.00: Coffee break

11.00-11.45: Establishing a stemma: how to choose between variant readings.

Dr Eoin Mac Cárthaigh. The focus in this session will be on measuring the reliability of the different manuscript witnesses and recovering the original text, using such tools as the grammatical tracts and the digital database of texts.

11.45-12.30: What does it all mean? Trying to make sense of a quatrain.

Dr Damian McManus. The focus in this session will be on interpreting the text with particular reference to motifs and syntax, drawing on the Simms database, the digital database of texts and the 17th-century tracts.

12.30-2.00: Lunch break

Lunch in The Duke (Duke St, off Dawson St) and an opportunity to visit exhibitions in TCD and RIA libraries.

Afternoon sessions:

2.00-2.45: Who’s it for? Recovering the historical background to a poem.

Dr Katharine Simms. The focus here will be on persona, locus, tempus and causa or who, where, when and why, with a demonstration of how to use the Simms database.

2.45-3.15: Coffee break

3.15-4.00: Desiderata: what needs to be done?

This session will look at possibilities for the future with reference in particular to how technology can promote the study of this material and what projects need to be undertaken.

4.00-5.00: Reception (details to be announced)Event changed from Eleanor Knott Memorial Conference: The Book of Leinster to Bardic Poetry Workshop.